The Baz File

Friday, November 14, 2014

Memo
To: Concerned Parties
Re: Progressives Taking the Fight to the States

Democrats were pounded in the trenches in the 2014 elections. The Washington-centric party establishment built a failed election strategy around preserving the Senate majority in Congress, leaving state organizations underfunded and ill-prepared to recruit good candidates, coordinate campaigns and raise money to fill their war chests.

The Republicans did just the opposite, and the result was clear. With all the short-term satisfaction of a junky concerned only with a quick fix, the electoral map-driven Democratic Party ceded the majority of local legislative races in most states to the opposition. The Democrat's strategy did very little to counter conservatives skillful organizing and recruiting on the local level.

Why be so sure it was party apparatus that failed to field a more competitive slate from the ground up? Because many of the issues that progressives have advocated for years did just fine last week with voters. Those issue campaigns had organizational infrastructure, energy and a winning game plan. Given the inconsistent coverage and headlines, the drubbing Democratic candidates took last week overshadowed most of the wins for cornerstone progressive issues, including raising the minimum wage, protecting a woman's right to choose, community gun safety and protecting food and water from fracking.

Most heartening for the left, many of those victories came in hardcore red states.

While party officials in Washington privately search for answers, new leadership and a fresh direction, progressive organizers are moving forward. Activist leaders on the left see victories in states like Alaska, Nebraska and Texas as proof voters support issues that contribute to personal freedom -- from public safety to being able to making livable earnings.

Author and scholar George Lakoff contends "Most progressive issues are freedom issues," and they tend to cut across ideological lines. This philosophy bodes well for winning the hearts and minds of those ever-important swing voters. Progressives have hitched their efforts to issues that have a better chance of moving middle of the road voters.

As one initiative campaign organizer, Adam Briggle, told The Los Angeles Times after winning a ban on fracking in a Texas Oil Patch town, "People recognize this is a mainstream issue."

This year there was a lot more appeal for issues than the elected officials who allegedly trumpet them. That will remain the model for getting things done. Why? Because voters like having a say, and unlike candidates, issues are defined. Issues don't waver under pressure, or find ways to avoid doing the right thing for the sake of political expedience. Issues must do exactly what they say they will do when they are approved by the voters.

"It's no fluke that voters in the state of Washington chose to keep guns out of the hands of criminals," Gun Truth Project Director Naomi Seligman said after voters in the Pacific Northwest state opted for universal background checks on all gun sales. "As mass shootings continuing to punctuate the news, voters will stand up for the right to protect their communities from gun-wielding predators."

The potential to grow the base of voters who support progressive issues is immense, and because of that, the 2014 elections will become a catalyst for a new effort to leverage the success of progressive state ballot initiatives into the most comprehensive national plan to expand and energize base voters with the goal of enacting a national agenda on the state and local level.

“Progressives are looking around to figure out where to go to push back, and there has not been a vehicle to do that at the state level — it’s the biggest missing piece in the progressive infrastructure,” Nick Rathod, a career Democratic operative who is raising money and interest in taking the fight back to the neighborhoods, tells Politico.

Rathod, who served as President Barack Obama’s liaison to state officials and directed state campaigns for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun safety group, intends to use his progressive group SIX to support campaigns and legislation in the states, providing organizational, media and issue expertise -- along with opposition research, a necessary tool for winning an election at any level.

This election was a wake up call for the left. If progressive forces fail to re-build the ranks on the local level it will create a long-term debacle with widespread ramifications -- from gerrymandering congressional districts so they favor conservative candidates, to preventing progressive policy from taking root at the local level, and allowing the right wing to out-organize, out-recruit and out-vote the left in even some of the true blue states across the country.

And does anyone expect the freshly installed divided federal government to get anything significant done the final two years of the Obama administration? Washington will be home to political grandstanding, and not much more.

"If you think the Republicans in Congress are headed on a new path, consider that a 50 percent majority of Republicans think 'the new Congress should begin an impeachment investigation of Obama,'” the authors of the Democracy Corps survey taken on election day write in their poll analysis.

Doesn't it make the most sense to fight where the fight is happening? As has been the practice since the 2010 midterm elections, most significant social and economic policy in this country will continue to be enacted in the states. The fight, for the foreseeable future, is in America, not Washington. The 2015 off-year elections will provide an opportunity to test the progressive ranks' resources and its will to win ahead of the 2016 showdown.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

The buzz today? The impending victory for the liberal and libertarian alliance riding down Highway 420.

Alaska, Oregon and the District of Columbia voters will vote to legalize
marijuana, moving toward creating a new state tax revenue stream and saving time and resources so the police, courts and corrections systems can focus on violent criminals.

When all the votes are counted, it will mark the second wave, following Colorado and Washington, to reverse outdated, expensive and dangerous marijuana laws. The mood of the nation has mellowed and there is much more at stake than simply ending too-often arbitrary small-time pot busts be banned by law in those states.

The Chamber of Commerce is about to consider embracing a new player in the agribusiness. Many conscientious growers will apply their entrepreneurial vision, legally, in a democratic marketplace. Cash-strapped governments will slap a sin tax on a substance and hamper the dark side of violent cartels that hawk their wares duty-free and persist as a pox on pot's kind kin.

The seeds have been planted. Colorado has collected
about $45 million in pot tax revenue through the first eight months of this
year, the state Department of Revenue reports. Other states and residents in the nation's capital are waking up to the potential windfall the government can make by taking illegal marijuana profits largely out of the hands of organized crime.

After nearly a century as part of the economic underground, the American cannabis souk is already a budding, competitive marketplace. Washington state and nearby Vancouver, B.C. weed merchants fear that once marijuana is legal in Oregon, growers and sellers there will be able to undercut prices, creating a demand for their clients to head south to catch a cheaper buzz. That, according to pro-legalization activist and entrepreneurs, is not the worst problem to face for a fledgling industry fleeing an ill-informed and unenforceable prohibition.

The expected green light that will come today in D.C for legalizing pot will be one of the most significant political victories for the blooming mainstream marijuana trade. Its advocates hope it will be a wake-up call for the federal government. With legalization staring them right in the face everyday, Congress and the Justice Department may finally choose to rectify anachronistic 20th century laws with the will of the people in the 21st century.

"We are going to win and the opposition will have to overturn an
election to stop us," Adam Eidinger, the chairman of the DC Cannabis Campaign, emailed me in response to a couple of questions I threw at him this weekend. "The D.C. Council will transmit the initiative in
January as planned as well. Any stopping this makes America no better
than China or Russia when it comes to respecting democracy."

Eidinger's activist curriculum vitae is well known, but in truth he has for more than a decade hoped to make his living re-igniting the American hemp industry. As pot's innocent cousin, production of hemp's strong, natural fiber is another victim of a misappropriated and misinformed war on drugs. From clothing to oil to durable rope and rugs, hemp can offer new jobs, more taxable revenue and another cash crop for American farmers.

One other state, Florida, decides today whether to legalize medical marijuana, but there is a giant sinkhole in the path: the question is being posed as state constitutional amendment, not a straight referendum. It requires 60 percent of the voters in The Sunshine State to pull the lever for 'yes' in order to become law.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Immediately after the Oct. 5 elections in Brazil, I warned pro-market
investors their candidate, Aécio Neves, hadn't earned enough votes to
oust incumbent President Dilma Rousseff, even though he jumped to a lead
in the polls after that initial vote. Neves never buildup enough of a cushion of support to offset a late surge by the incumbent president.

Now, just days before the runoff,
the forecast that Dilma wins prevails. The fact is in run-off
elections, like special elections, momentum is the gold standard, and
Neves hasn't shown he has enough steam to oust Dilma. Further strengthening
my prognostication: investors now say publicly they will pump money into
Brazil, no matter who wins.

The
Washington-centric coverage of the upcoming elections remains focused on
the U.S Senate races, with political oddsmakers (myself included) still
unsure if the Republicans will pick up the net six seats the GOP needs
to claim control of the upper chamber, though the hedge this cycle
appears to be in forecasting the probability that the Republicans will
take control of the Senate.

However, just below
the radar of the national mainstream media's daily drumbeat of
senatorial speculation is the apparent net gain the Democrats will score
in the governors' races this year. Albeit I forecast only one or two
pick ups, the Democrats are very well positioned to cut into the 29-21
edge in governorships the GOP now enjoys nationwide.

Considering
how much more policy has been accomplished legislatively in the states
than in Washington during the Tea Party era, net pick ups in the
governors' mansions are quite significant. While Washington is a
laboratory for public policy these days, the states have become the assembly line where the legislative work more routinely gets done.

The Democrats sure-thing pick up next month is in Pennsylvania, where GOP Gov. Tom Corbett has not shown signs of political life in the past year. He's toast.

The
Republicans best chance for a pick up is in the open seat in Arkansas,
currently held by Gov. Mike Beebe, who is term-limited and is required to step
down.

But there are
plenty of exciting, and too close to call races throughout the country,
including in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maine,
Massachusetts, Wisconsin, among a few others.

The Republicans have 22 governorships in play this year, while the Democrats have 14 gubernatorial seats to defend.

Here's what some of the expert prognosticators think on the races for governor:

The consensus points to a good election night for Democrats, but there is still time for Republicans to turn the overall trend around. Nonetheless, my forecast remains that the Dem will have a net gain of one two governor's seats.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Some votes have more impact than
others, as we see from across the Atlantic this season. No matter what
the outcome of the U.S. midterm elections, geopolitical ground worldwide
is not likely to shift, but if Scotland were to gain its independence
Thursday from the United Kingdom it would shake up world markets, disrupt
European economic alliances and inspire other separatist regions on the
continent to take similar action.

The Scottish
independence vote is this year's political marquee event, and it hasn't
disappointed observers from around the globe. It's quite a spirited
dispute.

But anyone wondering what the the United Kingdom will
look like after the votes are tallied shouldn't be surprised to see Scotland decide
against independence. More than three weeks ago, on the eve of the surge
in support for independence among Scottish voters, I forecast that "no"
would prevail in balloting, and the UK would remain intact.

After
taking a deep data dive and conducting interviews with international election experts in late August, looking at the polling numbers, historic voting trends
in relevant special elections and the two sides' ability to motivate voters,
there just wasn't enough time for the yes camp to solidify gains and
turn voters' emotions into actual votes (though arguably, there isn't nearly as
much available voting data available in the UK as there is in the US,
where elections are more of an industry, so there are limits to the modeling by American standards).

Literally on the
eve of the historic vote, and despite the late surge in support for
independence, the new data and sound expert source-driven intelligence leads to the same
conclusion: UK unity wins the day tomorrow in Scotland.

Despite
the upward movement by the separatist side in recent polls, the margin
is not wide enough to trump the unionists' deeper, more dependable voter
base of pensioners, public workers and hardcore Labour Party supporters.
In a whirlwind surge of backers, some of the new found backers tend to be "soft
supporters," who aren't the emotionally charged protest voters who have
been on board with the independence movement since the start of the
campaign. Their enthusiasm doesn't ensure they will actually vote.

To his credit, First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond
rallied the separatist cause with a dominating performance
in his Aug. 25 debate with unionist Member of Parliament Alistair
Darling, a Labour Party heavyweight. Nearly three-quarters of the
viewers on the nationally televised debate on the BBC said Salmond's
argument for independence crushed Darling's case for UK unity. In the
two weeks that followed, the separatist movement grew in volume and
finally broke though to overtake the unionists in a couple of polls.
None of those polls showed leads outside the margin of error for the
independence side, leaving it a statistical tie.

Then it hit the wall.

With a
high level of success, unionists,
with the help of top British lawmakers, launched a campaign in the
closing 10 days of the referendum that shows all the signs of having
halted the momentum of the "yes" forces. The "no" campaign managed to
scare many voters into fearing the country would sink into financial
anarchy by breaking away from the UK, leaving the new nation without a
currency, fewer banks and businesses, thousands of public employes
without a job, national security in disarray and individual health care coverage in jeopardy. The unity forces turned independence into the monster
waiting to spring out from the closet. Like it or not, it worked because fear motivates
people.

Vote watchers, political scientists and history buffs have seen this trend play out on big stage fairly recently. In Quebec in 1995, about three weeks before the vote for independence from Canada, charismatic activist leader Lucien
Bouchard was named chief negotiator for the mostly French-speaking
separatists. It was a move that rallied the cause and grew the ranks of
separatists. By the closing days of the campaign, every poll
had Quebec breaking away from Canada.

There was plenty of momentum (some
would say more than exists for the independence vote in Scotland right now), and
there were some very wise observers who believed that Quebec would be on
its own. Then it came time to vote and Quebec chose to stay in Canada, 2,362,648 votes (50.58%) to 2,308,360 (49.42%).

Look for Scotland to channel Quebec when it casts its ballots, but the separatists can walk away with a feeling of accomplishment, given all the new home-rule autonomy England threw at her little cousin to keep her in the family.

Monday, October 24, 2011

When this blog was launched it actually filled a void for a while. Few Washington-based bloggers were paying attention to the freedom uprisings on the Arab Street.

That has changed.

In the past few months the story moved to the front pages and the top of the newscasts. The phrase Arab Spring is standard today in the American lexicon.

The fall of Gadhafi, free elections in Tunisia and exciting new opportunities present a grand point in the experiment to step aside as an enlightened observer and pursue new challenges and responsibilities. The blog may be retiring, but the fierce pursuit of freedom and democracy surely will not.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

History will remember this day as one in which the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring took one of their biggest leaps towards freedom and democracy.

For Tunisia, the birthplace of the uprisings and reforms that swept across North Africa and the Middle East, voters turned out in en masse to cast ballots for a 217-person assembly that will forge a new government and constitution.

An estimated two-thirds of eligible voters in Tunisia cast ballots 10 months after street vender Mohamed Bouazizi, 26, doused himself with a flammable liquid, set himself ablaze in Sidi Bouzid and triggered the unprecedented and thriving freedom movement.

The breaking point came Dec. 17, 2010 for Bouazizi, when a policewoman unlawfully confiscated his vegetable cart and produce in the city located 190 miles south of Tunis.

His self-immolation triggered street protests across the country that were met with a heavy-handed response by President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali's security forces and secret police.

The thirst for freedom only grew for the Tunisian people, who were already plagued with poor wages, lousy living conditions and out-of-control inflation.

Bouazizi suffered and eventually died on Jan. 4 2011. Ali was toppled 10 days later.

"I congratulate the millions of Tunisians who voted in the first democratic elections to take place in the country that changed the course of history and began the Arab Spring," President Obama said in a statement.

"Just as so many Tunisian citizens protested peacefully in streets and squares to claim their rights, today they stood in lines and cast their votes to determine their own future," Obama said.

Conditions were not much better for the Libyan middle class, even with an ocean of oil under their desert country. Gadhafi used the excessive profits to fill the treasuries of his family, his henchmen and African despots who had pledged their allegiance.

But backed by the most powerful coalition air force and navy on the planet, the revolutionaries were transformed by foreign military advisers from a rag-tag band of spirited, but ill-trained and equipped fighters into a force able to execute one of the most impressive offensives in modern history.

Like Tunisia, the new Libya presents the potential for democratic reform and freedom from tyranny. The TNC has vowed to embrace reform as it seeks to rebuild its nation.

"The transitional authorities can build on this movement by promoting reconciliation and respect for human rights across Libyan society, while helping to prevent reprisals and ensuring the justice and due process that the Libyan people expect and deserve," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.

"The path to democracy is a long-term process that requires the participation of all Libyans," Clinton added.

It is very, very early to predict how the freedom movement will continue to play out, but the path that the revolution has taken shows signs that Bouazizi's extreme form of protest and ultimate sacrifice was not for nothing.

Search This Blog

Amazon Deals

About Me

I've covered the last three Presidents as a White House correspondent and political editor. I write about politics, government, domestic and foreign policy. I favor the voiceless, but left vs. right is not as important to me as right vs. wrong. For me journalism is an obligation, so occasionally I will blog what I learn here. I co-founded the Mouth of the Potomac blog at the New York Daily News, but now I have this one all to myself!